


Give a little love

by girlwithabird42



Series: Once more for the ages [26]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Romance Novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24144085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwithabird42/pseuds/girlwithabird42
Summary: Chloe finds some fun reading material to absolutely torture everyone.
Relationships: Chloe Frazer/Nadine Ross, Nathan Drake/Elena Fisher
Series: Once more for the ages [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1289426
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	Give a little love

For all the snooping she’s done in her life, Chloe hasn’t done much on mum. It’s not a rule, but with few secrets between them, there isn’t much need.

She’s bored though; mum’s out and Nadine hasn’t arrived yet, so Chloe rifles through the apartment for some form of entertainment.

She starts with mum’s bedside table, looking for suspect reading material. Though most of mum’s reading is academically inclined, Chloe’s found she almost always has at least one romance novel waiting for her at the end of the day. It’s no substitute for the real thing, but Chloe doesn’t argue with the results.

She hits the jackpot: several pink paperbacks with flourished font that could never be mistaken for academia. Chloe scans the scantily-dressed couples, but there’s one that particularly catches her eye; a man and a woman incongruously dressed for the jungle.

She flips it over for the description: Distant Flirtation _is the story of two adventurers lost in the ruins of an ancient civilization. Alone with each other, they discover far more than secret treasures._

“Sure, why not?” Chloe mutters to herself, depositing the other options.

She’s all of three pages in when it becomes immediately apparent _what_ it is. She howls with laughter in the empty house. Someone watches _Drake and Fisher’s Fortunes_ and has some time on their hands _._ Now Chloe’s really invested.

She’s fascinated what the author thinks Nate and Elena’s chemistry is and she’s here to judge. After all, she knows better than most what sex with Nate actually is.

She’s just getting to the really sexy stuff when mum returns; Chloe’s attention is fully diverted when Nadine’s taxi shows up at the door. There’s no picking it up again until Nadine hops in the shower.

“What are you reading?”

Chloe tears her eyes away from the page. She hadn’t realized Nadine finished.

Grinning wickedly, “Someone’s smut for Nate and Elena’s show.”

In mild exasperation, “Why would someone write that?”

Chloe loves Nadine, but she can be such a buzzkill sometimes. “Why does anyone? It’s hot.”

Nadine chuckles skeptically. Nadine may be a self-professed cynic, but Chloe’s knows she’s not immune.

Chloe clears her throat, reading aloud, “Emma’s skin was on fire with Nick so close –”

“Stop, stop!” Nadine protests, even as she giggles. “I will do anything to get you to stop!”

Chloe smirks. She wasn’t expecting Nadine to cave so easily. “Anything, love?”

Nadine raises an eyebrow, but she’s still smiling. She crawls on top of Chloe, rendering her unable to escape the bed. As Nadine kisses her, their bodies pressed close together, she easily pries the book out of Chloe’s hand.

“Anything.”

All according to plan.

\----------

Chloe’s a heavy sleeper; she brings it on herself, staying up to all hours staring at her phone. Nadine’s torn between finding it endearing and mildly frustrating. It leaves her with way more time in the mornings than Nadine can occupy herself with.

Chloe’s latest reading material is dumped on the floor. While Nadine initially was surprised Chloe read romance novels, in retrospect, she really shouldn’t have been. As clever as her girlfriend is, Chloe is a wildcard first.

Despite herself, Nadine leans off the bed to grab it. She’s lucky Chloe’s phone wasn’t the haphazard bookmark or Chloe’d wake up immediately and Nadine would be found out.

It’s trite and Nadine can practically predict every line and plot development. It’s stranger knowing the faces the author wants these characters to have.

While she’s slowly getting acquainted with the fictional version of the couple, it’s clear the author does not relish in the pleasure of sticking a gun in Nathan Drake’s face. It’s a shame really, that the villains are so lacking.

Nadine rolls her eyes at yet another soppy declaration when Chloe stirs behind her. _Shit_.

She quickly tosses the book back to approximately where it fell before and hopes Chloe doesn’t notice.

Nadine seems to have escaped being found out, but it turns out the worse fate is bits of the book stick in her brain. At inopportune moments her mind wanders to what she read, and worse, the excerpts of sex Chloe keeps insisting on reading out loud.

She needs to get this book out of their lives but there’s no obvious way that doesn’t point directly back to her.

\----------

It’s a third-rate motel with no minibar but Sam brought liquor – better than getting ripped off. Chloe and Nadine are game drinking buddies.

“To another excellent find, ladies!”

“Cheers!”

After downing her glass, Chloe puts up a finger. “Speaking of excellent finds –”

“Oh no,” Nadine groans, which can only mean Chloe’s actually got something good.

Sam’s a little surprised she only pulls out a book from her duffel bag, opening to somewhere in the middle.

Dramatically, “As Nick plunged into Emma – sorry, as Nate plunged into Elena –”

Sam’s brain is short-circuiting. He can’t be hearing this and Chloe got to that page _way_ too fast. “What. The. Fuck. Chloe.”

“She’s been like this ever since she found it,” Nadine sighs. Sam deeply sympathizes with her.

“It’s quite good, you don’t know what you’re missing,” Chloe grins evilly.

“Oh I think I do.”

Sam thinks if he might need an exorcism. He thinks Chloe does too.

Harassing Nathan about his sex life when they were kids was one thing. But Nathan’s a married and settled adult. And Elena at least deserves the privacy. All that’s certain is Nathan’s life has only gotten too public for his own good and Sam’s got to do something about it.

God forbid, Cassie ever finds out when she’s old enough to understand.

The next morning, he manages to catch Nadine alone.

“I will literally give you two hundred dollars to get that book out of her hands.”

“I would have done it for free –”

“Oh great.”

“But since you’re offering. I won’t even make you pay up front.”

Sam could have used the money, but price is worth it.

“Fine, but I need it my hands before you get the money.”

“Deal. Trust me, you’re doing me a favor.”

“And you’re getting two hundred bucks.”

True to her word, Nadine surreptitiously shows him the book two days later. She grins as they swap the cash for the book.

It’s really unsettling knowing what he knows how the models on the cover even look like his brother and sister-in-law. Sam shudders and flips it over, carefully avoiding opening the cursed book.

He goes to bury it deep in the motel dumpster, but that doesn’t serve as the warning he wants it to be. Instead he drops it in the mail with an attached note.

_This is what you and Nathan have wrought. Burn it._

\----------

A package addressed to her in Sam’s handwriting is odd. No one’s birthday is coming up and it’s certainly not Christmas. The surprise of receiving the package is nothing to what Elena finds inside though.

“Oh,” she wrinkles her nose, just glancing at the cover.

Never in a million years would she have guessed other people were invested in her marriage like this, much less her brother-in-law, but it’s not totally unprecedented.

Celebrity, if she can call it that, is strange. There’s the interview with weirdly personal questions or being recognized at the grocery store, the leering at Nate and occasionally herself, but ‘starring’ in a romance novel definitely tops them all.

Elena would expect this from her reality show days, not archeological digging. But the show was off the air for a few years and clearly someone found a way to make up for it.

The longer she thinks about it, it moves past the weird and into her own morbid curiosity as to what the author has to say about her and Nate.

_Distant Flirtations_ is a bit battered and the spine is suspiciously cracked in places. Elena has to know what this is about and how Sam got it.

“Is it done?” Sam asks when she calls, not bothering with the usual pleasantries.

“Not yet. The whole thing’s kind of funny.”

“I’m glad one of us is amused by it,” Sam says sarcastically.

Elena rolls her eyes, “Where did you even find this?”

“Chloe and she wouldn’t reveal her sources.”

Elena chuckles, “I probably should have guessed. Don’t worry, I won’t rat you out.”

Except Elena doesn’t destroy the book.

In spare moments, she actually finds herself reading it. She sees bits and pieces of the show haphazardly plotted together. The drama bears a faint passing resemblance to the old days, almost like hunting for El Dorado or Shambala but the real adventures were far more exciting and so much stranger.

And what Emma and Nick have is nothing on what she and Nate have, Elena can say on absolute authority, except there’s no one to listen.

Still, Elena saves the book as a sort of odd memento of the early years she doesn’t have nearly enough footage of.

\----------

“Where the hell are they?” Nate feels like he’s torn apart every corner of the house looking for his glasses. They’re nowhere to be found.

Elena warned him he’d probably need multiple pairs and, as usual, she wasn’t wrong, it’s just he can’t find any of them. It’s one thing if he’s lost them himself, but Cassie’s also taken to playing with them when they’re in her reach. It dawns on him maybe Elena stashed a pair away exactly because of that.

Elena’s nightstand is filled with odds and ends: hair ties and clips, near-empty pens, a squashed tube of hand lotion, a tangle of chargers, and just as Nate suspected, an untouched pair of his glasses.

He’s just about to shove the drawer closed when he spies a book.

“ _Distant Flirtation_? What?”

Elena’s in the wing chair in the office, still managing to hunch over the table, furiously scribbling notes.

Nate places the book on the table. “Found this looking for my glasses.”

She looks up, blushing a little. “Chloe found it.”

“Of course she did.”

Only Chloe would so unabashedly share it with the world.

“It’s not bad,” Elena concedes.

Ego kicking in, “It’s about _us_ , I kind of would hope not.”

“You know what it is wrong about?” she says with a coy, inviting smile.

Easily tempted, Nate steps forward, leaning over Elena and bracing his hands against the seat as she leans back to look up at him. He feels her warmth emanating off her; close as they are, he’s already thinking about getting even closer.

“Enlighten me.”

She doesn’t have to crane too much to kiss him, catching his lower lip with her teeth before breaking apart.

“Our sex is _so_ much hotter.”

Nate doesn’t need to read a word of it to know that’s the damn truth.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, romance novels are great.


End file.
